“Jane the Virgin” Is Not a Guilty Pleasure (Excerpt) by Emily Nussbaum The New Yorker March 12th, 2018 Annotation Key: ___________ = Important point ___________ = Thesis statement ___________ = Question / reminder to find out more about this point ___________ = Vocabulary word ___________ = Distinctive, interesting word choice, figurative language, etc. A few weeks ago, the CW aired a perfect episode of “Jane the Virgin,” directed by its star Gina Rodriguez. [→ Note: Remember to research Gina Rodriguez’s biography for upcoming Drama paper. Ask Prof. Joyce for suggestions on where to start? ] It had five plots, ranging from poignant to zany. Each scene was tinted in pastels, like a plate of macarons. [→ Interesting wording: Comparing the show to a decadent, colorful dessert.] There were two gorgeous dresses and three hot consummations, plus a cliffhanger, several heart-to-hearts, and Brooke Shields getting attacked by a wolf on live TV. As usual, the world took all this perfection for granted. [→ Important point: People aren’t paying enough attention to how excellent this show is. ] “Jane the Virgin,” which débuted in 2014, is an extremely loose adaptation of a Venezuelan telenovela [→ Vocab word: Telenovela = a Latin American soap opera ] in which a poor teen-ager has the ultimate “whoops” pregnancy: she’s accidentally impregnated via artificial insemination, then falls for the wealthy bio dad. For the American version, the creator, Jennie Snyder Urman, added a fabulous framing device—a Latin-lover narrator who punctuates his remarks with the refrain “Just like a telenovela, right?” An excitable fanboy who tosses out Twitter hashtags like confetti, [ → Interesting wording: Simile of “confetti” suggests that the show is festive, fun] the narrator (voiced by the very funny Anthony Mendez) works as a bridge to the globally popular genre, but he also helps link it to other women’s “stories”: the soap, the rom-com, the romance novel, and, more recently, reality television. These are the genres that get dismissed as fluff, which is how our culture regards art that makes women’s lives look like fun. They’re “guilty pleasures,” not unlike sex itself. [→ Important point: Our culture tends not to take “women’s shows” seriously. There is a gender dynamic influencing the show’s being overlooked.] Women use this language, too—even Rodriguez, in interviews, has compared her show to red-velvet cupcakes and Justin Bieber.[ → Important point: Women themselves tend to consider this kind of show to be merely fun or indulgent.] In fact, “Jane the Virgin” is more like a joyful manifesto against that very putdown, a bright-pink filibuster exposing the layers in what the world regards as shallow. [→ Thesis statement: “Jane the Virgin” makes viewers question our assumptions about “guilty pleasure” shows, and subverts our expectations about “women’s shows.” ] [→ Interesting wording: “Manifesto” and “filibuster” are political terms, but she’s also describing the show as “joyful” and “bright pink.” She’s suggesting that the show is fun, girly, colourful -- AND politically significant / serious, all at the same time. Her argument is that we don’t have to see fun and artistic importance as opposites.]